Portrayed by Larry and Constance Clowers of Gettysburg, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and wife, Julia, along with Trinity Lee McCabor of Argyle playing their daughter Nellie, wait in the winners circle for the running of the West Point Handicap. (ED BURKE, The Saratogian)

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Ulysses S. Grant turned quite a few heads on Thursday during a surprise visit to Saratoga Race Course, 145 years after his first trip there.

One of the army's most accomplished horsemen, Grant had a deep and abiding love for equines.

The Civil War hero and 18th president -- portrayed by Larry Clowers of Gettysburg, Pa. -- was on hand to award the winner of the West Point Handicap and help raise money for Grant Cottage, atop Mount McGregor in Wilton.

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"He preserved the United States," Clowers said of Grant. "Now it's time for the country to come to his aid because he can't fight any more. He gave his all for the country. We're just asking for a few dollars."

With state funds in short supply, the group Friends of Grant Cottage is doing all it can to raise money for the historic site where Grant died July 23, 1885. "We are in a desperate struggle to not only keep the site open, but to reverse the advances of nature over time and bring the site back to the way it was in Grant's time," said Lance Ingmire, "friends" group president. "We receive no operating funds from the state and run the entire site from donations and admissions, covering all tours and site interpretation on our own. Little is left over to help with the infrastructure."

Grant was accompanied by his wife, Julia -- portrayed by Connie Clowers -- and their daughter, Nellie (Trinity McCabe). Several other Civil War re-enactors joined the day-long activities that included a singing of the National Anthem by the West Point cadet choir.

The real Grant first visited Saratoga Race Course from July 25 to 27, 1865, just two years after it opened and only three months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox in April of that year.

"You can see this place in the movies, but you don't get the feeling that way or by reading a book," Clowers said. "You've got to be here. I love looking at the people and horses. There's an electricity here."

Mrs. Grant said her husband not only wanted to watch, but be in the races, too.

"I was a very good horsewoman as well," she said.

Following four long years of horrific war, Saratoga gave Grant a chance to enjoy some of the best horses in the world, instead of seeing them maimed and slaughtered on the battlefield. One time, he had a man tied to a tree as punishment for needlessly whipping a horse in cruel fashion.

"He could not stand anyone mistreating animals," Clowers said.

"By the way, I'm not sure anyone ever untied that guy," he joked. "He might still be tied to that tree."

Grant made several trips to Saratoga Springs during his life, a refuge that helped heal the emotional scars of war.

"When you order an attack and thousands of men die, you never forget that because you're the one that ordered it," Clowers said. "You vow to win the war to make sure they didn't die in vain."

Mrs. Grant said the general had an especially hard time seeing the casualty lists, because they often had the names of people he knew. "Then it became personal," she said.

One of Grant's most poignant moments came shortly after the ill-fated Battle of Cold Harbor in which the Union suffered 6,000 casualties. Julia had sent her husband a cute photo of Nellie, just a small child, in a giant make-believe shoe. While mourning his losses, the gesture -- and image -- was just what he needed to refocus on the business at hand.

The first photo ever taken of Grant showed him with a friend and fellow officer who died in the Wilderness Campaign. Clowers told how, during a trip to Chicago, a man in tattered uniform called out, "General Grant! You don't remember me do you?"

"Of course I do," Grant replied. "You were at Shiloh. We sat under a tree and ate bread together."

It was that kind of personal attention and care that endeared Grant to his troops, who visited him by the hundreds at Mount McGregor shortly before his passing. On his last trip upstate, already suffering from cancer, he stopped at the West Point train station where he was greeted by a one-armed man who said, "I lost my arm in the war for you. I would lose my other arm to make you well."

"They still had that kind of devotion," Clowers said. "The emotional tie with soldiers was always there."